Netflix law divides MEPs: On-demand can be soooo demanding

Draft of revised law to land in one month, vows parliament's culture committee.

Discussions around the Netflix law are off to a rocky start in the European Parliament.

On Tuesday, two German MEPs charged with steering the revision of the Audiovisual Media Services (AVMS) directive through to completion set out an ambitious timetable, but they also faced questions about conflicting interests. Meanwhile, the European Commission briefed MEPs in the internal market committee about its plans for the law.

Rapporteurs Petra Kammerevert and Sabine Verheyen, who sit on parliament’s culture committee, said they planned to publish a first draft of the report by July 13, with a view to voting on it by the end of the year so that negotiations with national ministers can begin in February 2017.

However, the pair are members of a board that advises German public broadcaster WDR, which is part of the national ARD group that is made up of Germany's regional public-service broadcasters. That is perceived as a problem as the new AVMS directive will extend existing broadcasting legislation to the likes of Netflix, Amazon Prime, and even YouTube, while relaxing some of the rules on traditional broadcasters—including ARD.

Both Verheyen and Kammerevert said repeatedly that they would be “transparent” and claimed there was no conflict of interest.

Further Reading

“Yes I am involved with WDR, but my role is to represent the interests of the public. If you want to look at the work I’ve done in the last few years, no one would say that I had given some sort of special treatment to the broadcaster. The fact that I am involved with a state broadcaster is simply not relevant,” said Kammerevert. Before adding that public broadcasters are a fundamental part of democracy, whose job it is “to rub salt in the wounds” of politicians.

Verheyen was also keen set the record straight: “Since I became an MEP, I am no longer a full member of this broadcasting committee in Germany. I am a deputy. We are not paid by the WDR, but we get compensation from the broadcasting committee. That budget from taxpayers’ money is used to compensate people on this committee so that they are independent from the state. It is an independent body and is not in any type of relationship of the WDR," She added: "I get €500 a month as expenses.”

Both MEPs promised that the new law would create a “level playing field” and would be “technology neutral.” As part of the transparency push, they will organise three hearings with “stakeholders”—one with platform services providers, a second with Google, Facebook, device producers, and civil society, and a third with member states, experts, and scientists.

In her presentation to internal market MEPs, Brussels' DG CONNECT digital wonk Lorena Boix Alonso stressed the need to create uniform rules for online and offline broadcasting. “For on-demand the current provision doesn’t say much. Member states can do whatever they wish and this has of course led to a lot of fragmentation," she said. "The idea is to keep the rules that apply to TV broadcasting untouched as they seem to be working and for on-demand slightly levelling up.”
Updated Thursday June 16 to correct quote attribution.